Chapter 253, 1/2

“Resons and infinity are easy to understand, yet hard to work with. This difficulty is the defining feature of magic in this New Cosmology.”

Guile sat on a high chair, the blonde fox’s ten tails wafting around his small form, his voice clear and solid as he spoke to Erick, Destiny, Solomon, and Ophiel, all sitting around the table in Erick’s house inside Benevolence Itself. All of them were all ears, even Ophiel, who seemed like he was remembering something he had forgotten more than he was learning something new. Perhaps Yggdrasil was the same way, for he was surely watching in on this conversation.

Erick felt a spike of melancholy lodge directly into his tattered core and soul, all of him feeling ragged from top to bottom, as he felt out that part of himself that used to connect to Yggdrasil and instead felt nothing. Just a wound.

He wiped away a stupid tear and tried to get back into the moment of solving the world’s problems.

But Guile looked at him.

Erick shook his head, then said, “Please continue.” Destiny and Solomon looked to him. Ophiel put his hand on Erick’s, and Erick held that hand tight as he tried to smile. Erick strongly said, “Please continue, Guile. I’m not good right now, but I will be good.”

Guile accepted that, and continued,

“In this New Cosmology:

“ ‘Infinity’ is the multiverse and everything which could have happened, but which has not happened. There is no ‘true universe’ like the one that the gods dominate and make real on Veird. Instead, every universe is valid and solid and constantly spilling into new universes, with some major caveats. If you can target it, you can arrive at it. We will get to targeting in a moment.

“To navigate infinity correctly is to become a small god in this New Cosmology.

“To understand ‘resons’, we must first understand that ‘resons’ are not what they are called in all languages, but instead what we would call them, in Ecks, here on Veird. Other acceptable words include amber, cognizance, synth, ‘resin’ as from trees, and ‘reason’ as from ‘reason for doing something’. We call them ‘resons’ because of a bastardization of language. A reson, in short, is a coalescing of purpose to affect a change.”

Erick smiled.

Solomon said what Erick was thinking, “It’s almost like that time we messed up confusing ‘worm season’ for ‘wyrm season.”

Destiny eyed them both, and for a moment, Erick was thinking in English as Destiny asked, “How could you confuse ‘okapah season’ and ‘wyrm season’? What even is okapah season?”

“A foible of language,” Erick said, then nodded at Guile.

“Probably not just a foible of language,” Guile said, looking intently at Erick and Solomon. “Language is magic; what else would you call putting vibrations out there in order to affect change in other systems of action, except for ‘magic’? Whatever experience you have with the word ‘reson’, I would hear it.”

“… Well.” Erick said, “That word is similar in English to ‘reason’, but also a bunch of other languages on Earth.”

Solomon said, “English is ‘reason’ but with a bit more ‘ee’ sound there in the middle, and ‘resin’ sounds just the same as Ecks’ ‘reson’. French has ‘raison’, Latin has ‘ratio’, Japanese has ‘riyu’, Spanish has ‘razon’… For that specific definition of ‘reson’ as, like, a ‘reason for being’, not all of Earth languages say ‘reason’ like Ecks says ‘reson’ by a [Long Bolt], but a lot do.”

Guile nodded. “The words of mana trickle into many languages; this is known. It is not too surprising that our ‘reason’ is so close to ‘reson’ which is close to your ‘reason’ and ‘resin’, but it does make sense for someone like yourself, with such a background, to have tunneled through the universe to Veird, alongside your daughter. The language of magic already touched you way back then, or perhaps you touched it first.”

Erick and Solomon thought about that—

And Destiny said, “Resons? Actual use, please.”

“As for the actual use of resons,” Guile continued, “That is where magic comes from.

“The concentrated reasons for your actions and desire become like a resin seeping slowly out of your soul, into the universe, becoming a fuel that you burn to enact a change how you desire by bringing forth the parts of infinity that most match what you want.”

Guile let that stand.

Because Erick and Solomon were both having a small epiphany.

“It’s what we’ve been doing in the Dark, then?” Erick asked.

Solomon said, “It sounds like what all magic is.”

“All multiversal theory, yes,” Erick added.

Guile interrupted. “Don’t go further with those thoughts, because magic in this cosmology is more difficult than working the Black Gate in the slime dungeon—”

“Hold on,” Destiny said, “I need an explanation. Are you talking about all magic being rift magic, Guile?”

“Multiversal magic,” Erick clarified.

“Yes, that.” Destiny said, “Solomon spoke to me a little about your ideas there, and they’re interesting.”

Guile said, “Rift Magic in the New Cosmology is not nearly as easy as we have it here on Veird, but it is still similar to Rift Magic that we have seen in the Black Gate, and pulling things out of the Dark.” Guile said, “For starters, there are limits to infinity in this New Cosmology, and vast, vast limits to magic, because all resons decay into the multiverse, creating more multiverses. It takes a very special sort of person to hold onto a pure enough reson to enact any sort of change in this universe.

“Mana is much, much easier to work with.

“Pulling a fireball out of resons would require there to be fire in a nearby infinity that you can reach, and for you to really, really want that fire to explode on a target, or some other way. For all but Wizards, simply starting a fire with a bomb brought in from elsewhere would be easier than attempting magic. Even for Wizards, you would be better served by bringing a bomb you made with you and bringing forth the possibility that you exploded the bomb on the target, while keeping the bomb still unexploded and useful more than once.

“The closer the possibility, the easier it is to bring forth.

“For instance, if you are walking along the lava of a volcano then it would be easy to imagine a universe where lava exploded up from that pool to strike a target flying ahead. However, summoning a fountain of water from the lava would be near impossible.

“The waterball would require Wizardry because, much like the Bands of the Script, infinity in this universe is parceled out into primaries. It takes a Wizard to reach across those primary demarcations. And no, I have no idea how big a primary is, only that they exist.

“Making a [Fireball] out of mana is easy. You can pull Fire from the Elemental Plane of Fire and slam it into a target, or you can accrete Fire in your core and launch it forward at a later date. Or you could mana alter your mana into Fire and do the same thing. You can’t do that with resons and infinity.”

Guile went quiet, waiting.

Erick was the first to ask a question. “How many resons does it take to flip a switch?”

“I have no idea.”

Solomon asked, “What is Wizardry in this universe, then?”

Guile nodded, then said, “Primary demarcations in infinity are like the bands of elements here on Veird, but larger. For instance, I believe the God Pact world of Veird would be a primary. Nothanganathor is likely constantly trying to reach us, but we have secured a personal infinity for ourselves, through one way or another. I know not how.

“Other such primaries are the world of Earth as it is today versus the infinities of worlds where life did not arise on Earth, though I am less sure about that since I am not there, and I cannot go off of anything about Earth except that which Solomon has told me.

“Wizardry would be a guy from Earth suddenly shoving himself across the universe to step onto the God Pact world of Veird.

“Wizardry would also be someone mapping the entire universe in a blink, even though this cosmology could never possibly allow such a thing due to the speed of light… Unless there are shenanigans afoot. Perhaps, when you Mapped the universe you merely tapped into something that already existed. Yes. That is probably what happened.

“Wizardry would be stepping off of Veird, onto a rocky planet that is Veird, but completely dead, with no Red Leviathan on the sun at all. A Veird that died and took Nothanganathor with it.” Guile said, “I highly doubt it would be possible to Wizard up a Veird in which Nothanganathor is not a threat, or rather, you possibly could, but you would just be leaving all of us behind in this universe. You will not have solved anything at all, except to save your own skin.”

“Well that’s not part of the plan at all,” Erick said, picking up what Guile was putting down.

Guile breathed out, seeming to relax a moment, saying, “I appreciate this.”

Solomon had been suddenly concerned, but then he relaxed, too. He asked, “Do you think Veird is on the same slice of infinity as Earth? My Earth?”

Guile said, “By the process of logical deduction, I would assume that most civilizations of the New Cosmology are on the same slice of infinity, except those which germinate from Wizards punching through to new slices of infinity, and establishing life there. So this means, either, that Earth exists on this slice of infinity, or it is close, and there are probably markers somewhere that would guide people to the main slice of infinity upon which all of the universe interacts.

“Someone has to have built a main hub or even billions of main hubs somewhere, yes?

“As for your Jane being on any of those Other Earths, I have no idea.” He added, “In all likelihood, Nothanganathor has attacked us from a slice of infinity that held no one, thus ensuring his project to destroy the Old Cosmology went off without a problem, but I see that as unlikely because… I don’t know, actually. I was speaking too much there, without much knowledge. Nothanganathor certainly did not destroy the entire Old Cosmology on his own, did he? Doubtful. And yet...

“We have reached the end of my knowledge of infinity and resons—

“Ah. One thing.

“I believe I said resons are like amber? That would be the blood of trees. Resin. Yggdrasil will soon start producing vast amounts of amber, reson, resin, synth, etcetera, rather soon, if not already. He will likely hide this resource here, inside Benevolence and use it for Erick’s plan, or, if that is not necessary, it will become the start of Yggdrasil’s own Wizardry… Perhaps his New Cosmology Wizardry, though. Not Old Cosmology Wizardry. Or however it works for World Trees out in this cosmology. I am unsure. Trees usually get bigger and less prone to disruption, so I imagine that will be the direction of his growth; an ultimate fortress of strength.

“Probably not capable of fighting off Nothanganathor yet, though. Maybe if he grows a thousand times the size of Veird, but probably not even then…

“And I have reached the speculation stage again. Apologies.”

Guile stopped.

Erick had no idea of Yggdrasil’s power, and he didn’t want to use that as a part of his plan, so he said, “Yggdrasil is a part of the plan, but a safer part than what I will be doing. I wanted both him and Ophiel born so they could survive what comes next, even if I fail.” He said to everyone at the table. “And that’s kind of an issue. The whole problem with us, here, doing this.

“Veird has survived a long time without me being here; without us working against the Red. If we do nothing, Veird will continue to survive. If I do something— If we dothings, then Veird is in danger—”

“We’re already in danger,” Destiny said. “This red dragon is fucking everything up for all of us. He must die. We MUST sunder him. There is no question of that.”

Solomon said, “We can leave the roaches in the basement and they won’t kill us as long as we don’t go down there. But I am with Destiny. I have too many plans in life to allow something like Nothanganathor to exist, to rip at us from the edges and kill us if we get too far out of line. Because that’s what it looks like to me, Erick. This isn’t a case of us ‘multiversal outrunning’ the Sundering, as you think it is. It looks like a ‘cat playing with its food’ situation. When Veird plays dead the cat gets bored, but it could still kill us at any time.”

Guile spoke up, “I prefer Erick’s comparison to a farmer raising fish. It seems to me that we were allowed to get back in line; allowed to retreat to the God Pact. It won’t touch us overmuch if we stay in line. But when we get out of line, it comes for us. I feel that it wants something from us. Or rather, from Veird.”

Destiny frowned at the fox. “You’ve been talking to Melemizargo too much.”

She wasn’t wrong, exactly. Guile was parroting Melemizargo’s old insanity, which was insane, yes, but based on facts that he couldn’t share with anyone.

Erick and Solomon shared a look.

Erick decided to stick up for Melemizargo, saying, “It seems more and more likely that Nothanganathor does want something, and he doesn’t want to allow us to escape his clutches, because if we escape, then he won’t get what he wants.”

“What could it be, though?” Solomon looked up, out, and shrugged a little—

Then he froze.

Erick felt a little jolt of power.

Destiny focused, and then she gasped.

Solomon went, “Oh.”

All three spoke in unison,

“The Mantle of the God of Magic.”

Ophiel softly said, “Never repeat that ever again.”

Erick felt a chill up his spine, and he knew they were right. Absolutely, 100% correct. Nothanganathor’s entire reason for the Sundering, for killing a universe, was to get control of the power of Darkness as the God of Magic… or maybe he just wanted to be the God of Magic? Erick wasn’t entirely sure what the God of Magic did, exactly, but Melemizargo had been the ultimate power in the Old Cosmology, and that Mantle passed down a family line…

Oh.

Nothanganathor was a family relation to Melemizargo?

Maybe?

Was the ‘Red Leviathan’ a leviathan? Or a dragon? Was there a difference, when dragons bred with everyone anyway? Ophiel had called Nothanganathor the Dragon Who Could Not Ascend, the Erased One…

But in addition to that, when considering the family history of where Old Cosmology dragons even came from in the first place…

Nothanganathor was at least a distant relative of the original Daughter of Fairy Moon and Gregarious; the very same Daughter who became the first Goddess of Magic, the first Dragon God, She Who Made Shadow. Or at least that’s how the fae told the story.

The Shades’ version of the creation of the Old Cosmology had the Dark Dragon making a middle path between Light and himself, thus creating Shadow, and thus the first God of Magic, in order to allow people to commune with the Dark. There were a lot of similarities between the two stories, but the actual attributions were different in both tales.

Erick believed the Fae version of events a tiny bit more than the Shade version. Fairy Moon had never lied to Erick, ever, but the Shades were born on Veird and they had grown up under an insane Melemizargo. The Shades might not have lied, either, not exactly, but they weren’t anywhere near Fairy Moon’s first hand account of simply being there for the birth of their universe.

Guile’s fur fluffed out in fear, at the thought of Nothanganathor targeting the Mantle of Magic. Perhaps he had made a whole lot more connections than Erick had in that possible revelation of intents. And then Guile shook himself and settled down. “Let us move on, please. I would speak of True Wizardry in the New Cosmology now.”

Erick, Solomon, and Destiny were also glad for the switch.

“In the Old Cosmology, a Wizard was a focal point of depths too deep for anyone else to change. Throw a fireball at them, and they could stop the fire any ten thousand ways, or they could just let it hit them and it would be like throwing a drop of water onto an ocean; not accomplishing much of anything at all. A Wizard achieved this by transforming into a full crystal that was also themselves and alive, but it only looked like a crystal. They were basically a mana ocean unto themselves. Their crystal self would be very, very dense, containing billions of mana effortlessly.

“In short: if a Wizard was enough of themselves that nothing else could touch them, and they remade the universe in their desired images always, then they were a Wizard in True.

“That was in a universe of pure mana, though.

“In the New Cosmology, a Wizard is much the same as in the Old Cosmology, but infinite multiverses complicate things. Perhaps you distribute damage among everyone? And healing among everyone? Perhaps you become a gestalt of all others, like Solomon is becoming? All good possibilities.

“I believe Yggdrasil will become an Old Cosmology sort of Wizard, growing ever larger and containing more and more mana of very high density, and such and such. Trees grow big. It is easy for them. But perhaps Yggdrasil will go the other way? I do not know. I don’t know how he could be a New Cosmology Wizard, but I have been surprised a lot lately. Either way...

“You cannot grow larger, so you have to go the other way, as most Old Cosmology Wizards would do, though they would also be partially on their own plane of mana at all times, too, so they did not have to deal with concepts of infinity, except with regard to Creation Wizards, who were the most largest of Wizards… Usually.

“Wizards are complicated. You don’t need to be too complicated, though.

“Just grow infinitely inward.”

Erick nodded a little, having already had a lot of these thoughts, but Destiny had never been exposed to this idea before, and Solomon was only most of the way, mentally, to where Erick was right now.

Destiny asked, “What the fuck? Infinitely inward?”

“We have examples.” Solomon said, “Some of those metamond crystals from the Glittering Depths. Are there any here— Ah. There’s this one. Wheatly?”

Solomon’s bracelet uncoiled from his arm, becoming a 3 meter tall solid gold mirror in the shape of a staff with a coil of gold at the top that surrounded a brilliant white sphere. The mirror reflected wheat fields, while the white sphere was filled with the silent radiance of Benevolent lightning.

Solomon said, “Wheatly’s sphere is an infinitely-inward space of power and intent. Or at least it can be.”

“… hmm...” Destiny narrowed her eyes on Wheatly’s core, as she asked, “Please explain the concept of infinity-inside to me. So we’re on the same book.”

Erick held up two hands, separated a little, saying, “Imagine the number 1 here, and the number 0 here. Pick a point between 1 and 0 and you’ll always be able to move left or right without crossing over a previous point. You can go from .5, to .4, to .45, to .44, to .445, to .444, to .4445, to .4444, and so on and so on, never reaching a point where you cannot go deeper into the space between.”

Destiny cocked an eyebrow. “Ah. Well. That explains that. And since mana is possibility, it can just dothat.”

Solomon said, “Correct. Though it does take some convincing and the laying of a framework to get that started.”

Destiny held up a hand and mana began falling inward, into a spot of power that never grew brighter or bigger, but which fell inward and inward and inward. “That’s not that hard.”

“… How much mana did you put in there?” Solomon asked, as Destiny kept pumping the tiny dot full of what appeared to be Benevolence.

“At about ten thousand right now.” Destiny added, “That’s 20,000. Yeah. This is easy. Huh.” And then she snapped her hand and the mana exploded and then did not, flowing back into her body without damaging anything. “Okay. That’s simple. I’m going to expand my core using that method.”

Erick and Solomon paused. And then both of them laughed.

“That’s fantastic!” “Ah, that’s great.”

Erick wasn’t sure how she had managed that so effortlessly, for the Script actively prevented mana crystals from forming, and yet she had done exactly that. She had created a metamond outside of any no-Script space. Of course it had exploded in short order, but that was normal.

Solomon added, “You’re amazing, honey.”

“What! Like it’s hard?” Destiny said, smirking, knowing exactly how much she had impressed them. And then she admitted, “It might have been a little hard. The start was the hardest.”

Erick asked, “Can you do that with every single kind of mana, all of them along different axes, in a multi-resonant sort of crystal?” He said, “I’m pretty sure that’s how to get True Wizardry, but that is, I believe, impossible inside the Script, for many reasons.”

Guile spoke up, “While the nature of the Script simply preventing True Wizards is something we should discuss, I would advise all of you to not speak of your personal Wizard Ways. Every end goal of True Wizardry is the same; to become a slice of reality unto yourself. The ways in which you get there are as varied as the numbers of stars in the sky, and to use the methods of others is to impair your own Truth.”

Destiny said, “I’m really not interested in pursuing True Wizardry right now, because I am absolutely sure that Nothanganathar doesn’t like that, because why else would there never have been any True Wizards on Veird… Which makes me wonder if he put some shit into the Script to stop us from claiming our Truths.”

“He is the ‘Dragon Who Could Not Ascend’.” Solomon said, “And the Script is an adversarial system, accepting all valid inputs, because otherwise it could not exist. So yeah. Nothanganathor probably put shit into the Script, just like Melemizargo did, just like the Old Demons did. Just like everyone does.”

“He’s a malevolent asshole,” Destiny said, then added, “Times infinity.”

Erick and Solomon grinned at that.

Guile asked, “What specific things are you referring to, Erick, when you say you believe True Wizardry is impossible under the Script?”

Erick nodded, then said, “In the worlds where I escaped the Storm, the Storm destroyed the Script first, and I started releasing mana almost like a gentle fog. No exploding. Nothing deadly at all. I’m not sure what, exactly, the Script is doing to us, but it was meant to curb the excesses of Wizards anyway, so there’s no way to ascend to Wizardry inside this manasphere… Which is about all I want to say on that.”

Solomon frowned a little, but he saw that Erick didn’t want to talk about his plans, so he let it be.

Destiny hummed. Then asked, “So you’re planning on escaping Veird somehow and accreting resons out there? Or something?”

Solomon huffed a tiny laugh, as Destiny said what he had been planning on letting go unsaid.

Erick smiled, and said, “I’m not sure.”

“Yeah yeah. I get it. Fine fine. No talk of plans.” Destiny asked, “So how do we accrete resons and what good are they if mana is so much better?”

Guile said, “You must have a concentrated reason for what you want, and the resons make that happen. Controlling that power is something that must be learned. I do not know how.”

Erick thought he understood what Guile was saying, but he wasn’t sure. “Are you speaking about the act of Wizardry, as in ‘I will it into being, and thus it is so’? We must accrete that capability? We must accrete the very capability of ‘intent’, ‘communication’, etcetera?”

Guile nodded. “Yes. There is no true mana in this New Cosmology. Every single act of magic is Wizardry, no matter how small, all of it communicated through the multiverse of infinity by resons, which bring those possibilities here, to this current instance of infinity. Of course, the same could have been said for the Old Cosmology, and that would have been partially correct, but not fully.”

“So you’re saying that our acts of intent created resons, Guile?” Solomon asked, to see if he was understanding this new concept completely.

“Yes,” Guile said. “I imagine you will be able to use your mana production gained from the Dark dungeons in order to fake your way to reson capability, but none of you are reson-based Wizards, except maybe Erick, and that is a big ‘maybe’. I imagine that the overall difference between an Old Cosmology Wizard and a New Cosmology Wizard are a lot smaller and more nuanced than we might think. I do know that the Old Cosmology had a separation of general Wizardliness between Creation, Destruction, and Paradox. I imagine that perhaps only Paradox exists in this New Cosmology, though that feels wrong for me to say.”

Erick and Solomon thought for a moment—

And Destiny rapidly said, “Yeah yeah. A universe where only Wizardry exists; no small mages and magics. Sure. What about how Wizards have bodies on this side of reality and mana realities on the other side? Like Erick with Benevolence? How do resons work with that?”

Guile said, “A great question. I have no idea.”

“Well…” Erick began, “In the Old Cosmology, everyone was mana, and that mana created side realities and personal bodies, right?”

“Correct,” Guile said, “Everyone made mana and made themselves in the process, but everyone also started off as a collection of Other, and purging the Other while keeping oneself intact was an important part of the ascent to Wizardry. That’s the crystallization of True Wizardry we speak of. If a person failed to maintain oneself and their full Wizardry self at the same time, Paradoxically, they would die. Many people never went further than archmage levels of power to avoid that final ascension, which is simply the gathering of a lot of mana in one’s core, to use as one wishes.”

Erick said, “So maybe True Wizardry with resons and infinity involved, in this New Cosmology, is just the same. The Wizard becomes a person who can step through infinity to their other selves and ensure that they never die or are harmed through the use of multiversal shenanigans.”

“So those other realities of infinity correlate with the realms of mana?” Solomon asked.

“Probably more complicated than that, but yes,” Erick said. “I imagine a capable Wizard could even start using their other selves to produce resons, if they become one with all their other selves or something like that. That seems like it would be ‘stealing the darkness’ from others, though; what Jane called ‘demon cultivation’ that one time.”

Solomon huffed a laugh. “ ‘Demon cultivation’! Ha. The incani did not like that.”

Erick smiled. “Yeah.” Then he said, “But if you ask for the resons from others, thus empowering yourself, then that seems more ‘cooperative cultivation’.”

“Plus, we’ve already invented [Renew], so that seems like it would…” Solomon paused. “Yeah. That’s probably the Benevolent Path working, isn’t it. Making mana of all types able to feed into other mana types. It probably works across more than just your own other selves’ mana, too.”

Erick nodded. Solomon had gotten to the thought at almost the same time Erick had. Erick expanded that thought, saying, “Maybe we could ‘cultivate’ whole other worlds. Maybe it’d be like using Mana Siphon. We could siphon the mana of a billion side universes that weren’t using that mana anyway, to use that mana here.”

Solomon went, “Huh. Have you tried using Mana Siphon on the Red Sparks?”

“I have not. Not directly. And yet

… I think that’s part of how Benevolence is working at its base. How Yggdrasil is protecting us. How all of that is working. Mana Siphon is a reverse [Renew] that picks at the stray power of whatever spellwork we’re touching, using that power to bring power to ourselves. It doesn’t work that well against direct strikes, but it does work really well at sustained magical conflict on wide scales. The more surface area we expose to the enemy magic, the more disruption and siphon that occurs.”

Destiny went, “You lost me there.”

Guile and Ophiel simply watched.

“Okay. Well. Back on subject:” Erick said, “Cultivating resons—”

“We’re not calling it accreting?” Destiny asked.

“I’d rather not; that would be confusing,” Solomon said.

Destiny nodded.

Erick continued, “Cultivating resons sounds like performing Wizardry to enact a will upon a space. Perhaps there is a base unit of power? What does 1 reson do? How many resons does one person produce in a day? Where do they actually come from?”

Guile said, “No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea.”

Solomon said, “Well look on the bright side. I’m rather sure if there is a ‘demon cultivation’ versus a ‘cooperative cultivation’ then Nothanganathor is for sure the first, which would explain why he can’t find us. There’s only one of him.”

“So we need to go wide,” Erick said, “To escape him fully.”

“That does seem logical,” Solomon said, “But we just don’t know what we don’t know.”

“And then there’s the whole ‘what about time and space magic’ thing,” Erick said. “Can resons even do Time Magic? Soul Magic? Anything like that?”

Guile spoke up, “Considering the nature of the Old Cosmology as a thing-that-could-be-destroyed-in-days versus this New Cosmology which contains infinity in multiple ways, and considering that this universe does have a beginning in the Big Bang —according to Solomon— and is growing, then that means that this universe is stable. Perhaps quite a lot more stable than the Old Cosmology. In my opinion, this means that this New Cosmology is much more limited in what magic can do. Time Magic is probably not happening for New-Cosmology-Only spellwork. But also! This means that you, as Wizards with Old Cosmology powers in this New Cosmology, have access to mana and those powers, which will likely stick around through whatever other powers you encounter in this New Cosmology.

“It is certainly due to the powers of mana that we have been able to escape the Red Leviathan for all this time.”

Erick took that in, thought for a moment, and said, “Interesting.”

Solomon nodded—

“Okay okay!” Destiny said, “Let’s circle back to what we do know. Let’s go over your Mana Siphon and the Red Sparks… Are you saying you’re eating Malevolence? I find that very interesting. It mirrors what he is doing to us.”

Erick paused.

Solomon paused.

They looked at each other.

“Want to go try it?” Erick asked. “See if we’re actually doing that?”

Yggdrasil appeared. “Not necessary. I am doing this right now; question answered.”

And then he vanished again.

Erick called out, “You and I are having a talk about everything that happened and soon, Yggdrasil.”

Ophiel grinned happily.

Destiny eyed the ceiling, then the room, waiting for Yggdrasil to show. He did not. So Destiny said, “Okay. Then what about how we’re surviving outside of the Script, and how to come back from being caught by the Red Sparks. I want to talk about that now.”

Solomon said, “Which leads to a different question, first: There’s mana out there, outside of Veird. But it’s outside of our control. Can we leave the Edge and not be instantly dead due to the vacuum of space?”

Destiny frowned at Solomon. “Obviously.”

“Well okay then,” Solomon said. “I wasn’t sure it was obvious.”

Erick nodded, then began, “The first time I came back from Sininindi’s Death World, Sininindi helped me, and I felt home, here, like Benevolence leading me back through cracks in reality, widening the path. Lightning suddenly connected me from where I was, to where I wanted to be. The second time I did that on my own. It was the Lightning Path.”

Destiny’s eyes sparkled as she leaned forward, asking, “So you saw the Lightning Path and walked it?”

“… Do you see a Lightning Path right now?” Erick concentrated on the conversation and saw the best way forward—

Erick and Destiny spoke at the exact same time, “It’s like this, then. A simple view change. A Benevolent way forward. We simply have to find the Path and walk it well.”

Erick dropped the Path. “Ah. Freaky.”

Destiny blinked out some lightning from her eyes, smiling as she said, “That’s my Benevolent Chaos! You found it!”

Solomon leaned forward, “We need to try doing that again, Destiny.”

Erick and Destiny both held out a hand to him, as they held out a hand to each other and linked grips, the two of them saying, “Take a hand, man.”

Solomon laughed, and then put his palms into Erick’s and Destiny’s.

Lighting met Lightning. Path met Path.

A Way Forward opened.

And all three of them spoke together, “Everyone has to get there on their own, but no one is ever alone.”

They released hands at the same time and lightning sparked across those fading touches, like the breaking of power lines, white jolts tracing moss and mushrooms across the round table between them. The mushrooms glowed white.

Solomon smiled.

Erick grinned.

And Destiny said, “Okay! So. Loved that. Moving on to actual plans for the fight, now?”

Erick said, “I have a plan. Solomon has a plan. But what I want to know is where you’re going to strike first, Destiny.”

Destiny grinned wildly, saying, “To start, I want to tackle the lending houses of the Wasteland—”

Erick opened his mouth to object.

“—Let me finish! I know it’s a bad look with the incani/human stuff, but I was talking to Avandrasolaro, and he wants to get into overhauling all of Hell’s contractual law, and...”

The conversation went on and on, with many topics circled and tackled from different angles, multiple times. They spoke of resons and infinity. Of the Lightning Path. Of Destiny’s plans for problem cleansing. Of a lot.

And all the while, the Benevolent Sky, with its ‘death of Benevolence Marker’ hovering 450 years out, began to recede. To fall further out of sight. To fracture and change and become ten smaller events that spread out far and wide, none of them too certain at all. That wasn’t too surprising. As Wizards moved they changed the world, and there seemed to be more and more Wizards around these days.

And yet, the Sky was not perfect. For every tangle of black in the Sky that denoted some good possibility, some axis upon which everything could be made better, Benevolence still tangled dark and deadly here and there.

Red Sparks hovered inside some of those black tangles.

But not too many.

The Red Eye itself was nowhere to be seen.

- - - -

Erick stood on the viewing platform in front of the Benevolent Sky. A permanent gate to House Benevolence held to the side, surrounded by a complicated series of defensive structures both magical and mundane. Beyond those Illusion Magics and Blood Magics and Scanning spellwork and adamantium door, lay the Benevolence Research Center. Overseer Aisha and Teressa Rednail were in office today, with Teressa doing prognostications for official visitors asking for prognostications and Aisha sometimes doing the same. Teressa was fully pregnant right now, though, so she couldn’t do too much non-Script magic without endangering the baby, so her schedule was light. Neither of them were in Benevolence Itself right now.

It was just Erick.

Not even Ophiel, for Ophiel was hanging out with Destiny and Solomon at the house. Erick, Solomon, and Destiny had spent the last three days talking about everything under the sun, which was a funny way to think about their conversations. ‘Under the sun’. Hah.

Solomon and Destiny were getting along well with each other, and also with Ophiel, though Ophiel was only a tenth there at any one time, except when one of him died trying to rescue people from around the world from various dangers. Really now. Erick was very tired of Ophiel getting himself killed, but… He wasn’t really dying.

Erick hoped Ophiel never died.

He hoped Yggdrasil would be okay. Erick had showered Ophiel with love every chance he could get, but Yggdrasil was distant right now. They had only shared a few quick words since Yggdrasil swallowed the sun’s power and spat Veird into a better universe at his birth, which Erick was still coming to terms with.

Jane, Abigail, Bethany, Candice, and Evan, were all working together with Champion Fallopolis and the former Champion of Melemizargo, Verrod of Vast Skies, in order to do some stuff with the dungeons; Erick wasn’t wholly sure. The Shade messes from the release of all those Shades from Sininindi’s dungeon were all cleaned up, but the girls and Evan were still working with the Shades. Erick didn’t get into it too much with them, but he would soon. When he got back to reality.

Erick, Solomon, and Destiny were all going back soon. Not right now. But soon.

Erick hoped they would all be okay when he was gone. They should be. Ophiel was already sad, knowing what was coming. Solomon suspected Erick’s plan, and probably knew 90% just from pure deduction. Destiny probably knew the general shape of the plan, but only in the vaguest of ways. Yggdrasil knew the whole thing, for sure.

He knew.

They all knew something big was coming.

Erick breathed deep, and then Called out, “Rozeta. Can we talk?”

Rozeta’s white wrought form stepped onto the platform with Erick, smiling a little. “You look good, Erick. Your soul isn’t tattered much at all.”

“Thank you,” Erick said, feeling melancholy and trying not to show it.

“… Is something wrong?”

“Just plans being made. I feel a lot smaller than I used to be.” And then he got right into it, saying, “I’d like your death switch relaxed, please, but not removed. I’m going to need to use part of that whole thing soon.”

“… You’re going to try and do the True Wizard thing.” Rozeta said, “I don’t believe my switch is interfering with you.”

“Everything is interfering. The switch is just one such interference.”

“Ahhh. I see, then. I can do this ask of yours. This is not a problem.”

Erick smiled. “Thank you.”

“… Are you okay, Erick?”

“It’s ascension, and I think I know what to do, but the bad outcome is death and that happens to most Wizards that try, yes?”

Rozeta said, “I don’t believe that will happen to you. You already tried several times and didn’t 100% die, so the only way you might die is if you don’t have anyone there for you, and you’re not going to do that, because you’re not careless. I know you, Erick, and I believe I know what is truly bothering you, and it is the lack of [Familiar]s, and your changing life. You don’t have Yggdrasil or Ophiel there all the time anymore, because now you have to look at them from the outside, like all the rest of us do.”

Erick grinned. “That has a lot to do with it, yes.” And then Erick lost his grin, saying, “Ophiel is constantly pulling people out of danger the world over due to prognostication telling him to help people in certain places, but he keeps getting himself killed. It’s like he forgot how to defend himself, and his low regeneration isn’t helping him at all.

“I think I pissed Yggdrasil off a lot by telling you about the Computer Mage.

“I have no idea what the girls and Evan are up to, and Destiny and Solomon are an item now, you know.

“The House is the House and I really should get back to that but I have a lot of other things to do for Melemizargo still with this Sundering Search, but also with this Lifeblood Heart thing.” He breathed. He asked, “So where do you want to start fixing some problems? Any problems of your own?”

“Let’s go through your concerns first.” Rozeta conjured some chairs and sat down, pouring Erick some hot tea as she began, “Ophiel’s Status is a special case.”

Erick sat down. “He showed it to me, and while it is odd, his mana regeneration is what concerns me. How long till he’s paid back my debt?”

Rozeta nodded. “You did an extensive [Death’s Approach] with him, using 20-odd years of mana regeneration well before it was actually here. This would have burned out much of his soul, as [Death’s Approach] does. Normally, he would simply have died from that, but the Script can do a lot, and one of the things it does is ensure [Familiar]s survive. Ophiel is going to be fine, and it won’t take him 20 years to pay back that mana he used, either, for that sort of debt is just something that cannot be repaid. So it will be a gift, from me to you, and one I was not exactly expecting to give, but which I am happy to do.

“Ophiel will still have about a year of downtime, though. I can mitigate his issues, but time is a better healer than I by far. If I were to try and actually fix him I would need to replace the broken parts of him and that would be soul surgery, which would change him, which I will not be doing. In the meantime, the Script gives him mana as it does everyone, though he is only receiving a tenth of what his Status says he produces. That I can’t fix either.”

“Can I pay some of his debt? Or all of it? It’s my debt.”

“No, you cannot. You produce a lot more mana than you actually use on most days, so you would think that would give you a surplus, but mana is not something like money. It cannot be transferred that easily.”

Erick gave her a Look. “[Renew].”

Rozeta rolled her eyes. “If you want to do some [Renew] magic, you can, but I cannot do that. I won’t do that. Before you try, though, I urge you to simply let Ophiel grow up in Benevolence. Let him have a childhood with you or with the people of House Benevolence, and even with random adventurers he rescues from the world. He doesn’t need to be out in the real world right now.”

“… Fair enough.” Erick asked, “Yggdrasil and his girlfriend?”

Rozeta froze for a moment. And then she thawed. “Ahh. Girlfriend. That explains a lot.”

“I haven’t had much chance to talk to Yggdrasil for he has said he’s busy, but I have talked to him a little bit about the Computer Mage.”

“Let’s circle back to that later.” Rozeta asked, “Are you going to keep working with Solomon and the Black Gate?”

“He’s doing well with that on his own, and I want to let him have that. I want him to succeed. He’s very focused on getting Debby back; his Jane.”

Rozeta was purposefully calm as she said, “You believe his delusion of Debby, then.”

Talking about anyone taken by the Red always drew the Red, and this time was no different, except no Red spilled out of the air, or out of anywhere inside Benevolence. The Red flickered behind Rozeta’s white wrought eyes. The Script itself was infected with Red, but then again everything was infected with Red, except for Benevolence.

To poke further at the Red was to invite it, though.

So Erick said, “Perhaps it’s a lie, but it is one that keeps him going, which grounds him in purpose and power.”

“And what happens after he gains his purpose?”

“… Are you worried about the Lifeblood Heart rescue?”

“Of course I am worried about that. I am worried about Solomon’s delusions, but of the Heart itself, I am worried what it might do that I have not accounted for, and all the problems it might solve, even though it will bring along new problems of its own. I admit, my worries are less right now, because of a whole slew of worries that have been removed from the board, from that Prophesied Storm, to Ophiel’s birth, to Yggdrasil’s birth… Melemizargo hasn’t tried anything yet, which is surprising. He is waiting, though. Preparing.” Rozeta said, “Though to say that makes me sound like a broken record—” She grinned. “—To use the phrase you have brought to Veird from Earth, and then made real through the invention of records. You should know that Ezekiel is doing amazing things with small technologies. I hope to link him up with the Computer Mage in some way… But now you tell me that Yggdrasil has feelings for the Computer Mage, and thus my original plan is out the window.”

Erick smiled a little. “Seems like you still have a lot of concerns of your own, too.”

“Always and forever, Erick.”

“I’m letting Destiny loose on the world more.”

Rozeta suddenly sighed. “Really now.”

“Yes. I’m giving you a heads up. She needs to work more than she is. Yggdrasil sees lots of problems with the world, too, and he also wants to help. He considers Solomon and Destiny his uncle and aunt, you know. I love that, so I am encouraging it.”

“… Solomon and Destiny are truly together, then?”

“I found out myself the other day.” Erick asked, “What are you going to do with the Computer Mage?”

“Nothing, for now, if you can keep an eye on her through her time at your school.”

“I can’t do that. She would be singled out, and that could be bad. She doesn’t even have a Benevolence ring around her neck right now. It’s a very ‘in the air’ possibility that she’s the Computer Mage.”

“But you believe she is, and Yggdrasil does too.”

“Yes.”

“Is Yggdrasil going to attend school with her?”

“That was the original plan. Did he say one way or the other?”

“He said he was, yes… But Erick... Every immortal ever, always falls in love with a mortal to start. This has the expected result. Some people arrive at immortality because they lead normal, mortal lives, and they experience mortal death, and they decide to never go through that ever again. Some immortals try to pretend they’re something smaller than they are, and this has the expected result, too. Immortal and mortal culture is vastly different, and you have made a right mess of that usual divide with [Reincarnation], but the divide exists. Yggdrasil is going to have a tough time in a hundred years. He’ll have a tough time in one year too, though, so maybe all that other stuff is premature.”

Erick smiled. “Maybe a little premature.”

Rozeta said, “I have decided that if you want your kill switch removed, then you need to put it onto Solomon.”

“… Rozeta.”

“I’m serious, Erick. You have a personal interest in keeping Destiny under control and you’re vastly stronger than her, so, if the worst should happen with her, I trust you to fight against her and win. But Solomon is different. If you were blocking you from resurrecting Jane, I would expect you to win against you, which means I expect Solomon to win against you, should you fight.” Rozeta said, “You, but with a goal, would be able to beat any goalless version of yourself every day of the year.”

While she might have been right in normal circumstances, Erick had a very clear goal right now, and Solomon wasn’t going to hurt anyone with his pursuit of his Jane… And yet.

Erick was already going to do some shenanigans with his kill switch and Status and all of that, in his upcoming plan to fight the Red, to escape Veird, to become a True Wizard, and to get a message out to whoever was out there. Nothanganathor had specifically prevented Erick’s Star Map ritual from escaping Veird, so that meant that someone was out there… So this was perfect.

Fate was intervening here.

It seemed that an unknown actor of the mana was on Erick’s side, again. Once he became a Full Wizard, though, could Fate help him at all? No. He’d have to make his own Fate.

Erick said, “I’ll make it part of my plans, Rozeta. Probably during the Lifeblood Heart extraction if things look to go sideways. Right before.”

Rozeta smiled. “Good. Thank you for agreeing. That was the last bit of preparation to make on my end. Plans A, B, and C, as Solomon calls them, are maybe a day away from being ready.”

“A day? I asked Solomon and he said 20 days— three days ago. So 17 days. I assume people are working behind the scenes? What are the plans, anyway?”

“Stratagold and Bluite are on the job. Plan A is the standard event. A Void Well that I have had built to specifications will grab the Heart and the whole thing will be slowly and stably drawn down to Veird’s Core, along a relay route that goes through the down ways whirlpool at the center of the Glorious Land.

“Plan B is the risky one, but it has a higher chance of working. The Heart will pop out of the Dark and some people we have will catch it in their soul, and then they’ll step through a [Gate] down to an open tunnel to the Core. Once there, they will let it go and shoot the Heart into the Core Lands where Void and Particle magics will funnel it into orbit down there. To use [Gate] itself will likely fail, but I will be working on some modifications to a special [Gate] that should make it work well. To use a [Gate] on the Heart itself is likely a fool’s errand, so we won’t be doing that. I’m not sure why, for I never personally interacted with the Heart, but people have tried to use [Gate] on it before and that never worked.

“Plan C is Solomon will catch it himself and run it down to the Core, flying as fast as he can through the whirlpool between the islands of Glorious Land. We expect him to get as far as he can and then hand off the heart to others, forming a relay event to the Core.

“Once the Heart passes the boundary of the Core Wall then I will have complete control over the flow of mana in the area and I should be able to lock the Heart into an easy orbit around the Core. I’ve already done some experiments with designating weightless blocks of foam as massive mana producers that double the mana all around them, and because of those tests, I am 99% confident that we can grab the Heart and solve all of Veird’s mana worries for the foreseeable future.” Rozeta finished with, “Plans might change a little, but those are the main plans.”

Erick said, “Sounds good. Plan C is Solomon’s goal, then.”

Rozeta smiled softly. “I have accounted for that. Once the Heart is in the Core, I plan on allowing Solomon or anyone to use it at my discretion. I have already vowed to do this. Solomon would be first on the list. As soon as the Heart is secure, everything gets more secure, including using it, so there is absolutely no reason for him to want to backstab that idea.”

“And yet you want to put a kill switch in him.”

“I am rather cautious, yes. Cover all bases, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Solomon wants at least 20 more days till go-time.”

“I’ll take that conversation up with him later, then, but I suspect that was only because I was going slow because I wasn’t quite sure how to get him to agree to a kill switch. He doesn’t have quite the same problems that I can solve as I was able to solve with you, with your needing to hide your core and your self from the world.”

“Ha! Been a long time since then.”

“It has been a wonderful, amazing time since then, Erick. I’m glad I trusted you. I hope I can trust Solomon and Destiny and Yggdrasil and Ophiel going forward, too.”

Erick felt all warm inside for a moment. “I’m sure you can.”

“I’m sure you can, but I don’t trust that quickly.” Rozeta asked, “Are you going to go back to the House now that Yggdrasil is released?”

“Not yet. Gonna plan for the True Wizard thing and then do that. I thought I knew what I needed to do, but things changed a little. I was actually wondering about how mana must be in this New Cosmology, and what sort of ‘mana’ like magic existed out here.” Red threatened to knock the conversation to a Bad End, so Erick made a Lightning Path that did not trigger the Red Sparks, and he took it. “How do you protect Veird from that sort of stuff? Is that something you can tell me? Or will I have to stumble my way into protecting myself from that stuff on my own? This includes protecting myself from Banned Magics, and all the other worlds to come, of course.”

Rozeta smiled a little, saying, “This concern of yours is where I spend most of my days fixing broken spellwork and trimming up the spells people make on their own, for a lot of people make malformed magic all the time due to the various factors of the physicality of the New Cosmology interfering with their spell creation and implantation in their soul. My solution to those problems is constant vigilance and many, many redundancies, because I’m overseeing the soulwork inside every single living thing in the world.

“Your solution will be much simpler.

“All you have to have is enough mana to drown out all other spellwork, effectively making it so that other magics cannot touch you through distance. This would include any possible magics from other universes, too.”

“Fair enough.” Erick asked, “You sure you don’t want to talk about the various space ships in the Vaults?”

“Let us not discuss that,” Rozeta said, a flicker of Red appearing in the far off space beyond her white wrought eyes.

“How about mana outside of the manasphere? How does one deal with that?”

“Struggling to hold onto it as best one can.”

Which explained a lot, actually. Rozeta was purposefully denying herself the ability to understand that mana existed beyond the Edge of the Script. Her denial was probably a defensive measure against the Red.

Rozeta asked, “Are you going to try and make a space platform? I hope if you do, you don’t try making a staircase like Holo if you plan on exploring in the void past the Edge.”

“The Wizard of Anarchy went about that all wrong. Sometimes I wonder about that. Why did he make such a giant staircase? People just wouldn’t have seen him as a problem if he hadn't done that.” Erick said, “I wish that would have worked out better.”

And as Erick tried to recall that whole battle, he wondered how much of his scattered memory of that time was due to the Red Sparks, his [Onward] accident, or due to the Wizard War with Holo and the traumatic nature of all that. Dealing with the Blue Wizard had been a lot easier, since that had occurred entirely inside the Script.

Rozeta said, “Wizards are always major turning points upon which entire worlds spin, Erick. He and you were on opposite sides of a brief, furious war that ended like those sorts of things usually do. I’m very glad that we won that, and the confrontation with that Blue Wizard when she attacked Oceanside.” Rozeta added, “Speaking of Oceanside… Have you spoken to Kirginatharp recently? He asks me if you’re purposefully avoiding him.”

Erick paused. He was purposefully avoiding Kirginatharp, the dragon with the Sun Style, who was Second to Rozeta, who was Rozeta’s son, while Nothanganathor was likely related to Melemizargo and also Rozeta and thus Kirginatharp, and who held the Dragon Curse which kept down all non-Paradox’d dragons in the world. But Erick shouldn’t avoid Kirginatharp. Perhaps he was doing that subconsciously? Erick considered a trip to Oceanside…

Erick would just need to force a good Lightning Path and thus he wouldn’t fall off the God Pact world.

Erick said, “I’ll visit him later, actually.”

“Ask him about mana beyond the Edge.”

“… That’s a good idea.”

Erick wouldn’t be doing that, and he hated implying that he was going to, which made him something of a liar. He did not like that. … But. Was it a good idea to talk to Kirginatharp about mana beyond the Script?

Maybe Erick could make that happen, too.

Rozeta grinned softly. “I have good ideas occasionally.”

Erick asked, “Have any good ideas about using Computer magic to make the Script easier?”

“Oh my no. Not happening. But for travel between worlds and the organizing of logistics and the recording of information in smaller areas than what Book Magic can do? Yes. I expect Book Magic to be better for almost all normal means, but Computer Magic should be able to do computation and other such tasks well. I expect there will be explosive growth in the use of gridwork in spellwork, but that’s about all I’m expecting Computer Magic to be able to do… Unless you have other ideas?”

“I have a lot of theoretical ideas, actually. Want me to start at the top?”

“Yes. I have time.”

Erick smiled, and began, “Math in magic is never something I got into, but a lot of people have, and so Computer Magic should be able to easily do things like the Crossing, facilitating point to point communication. The threat of information leakage and information threats will be the worst aspect of Computer Magic, and while the Crossing is vigilant against that, Computer Magic will need a lot of people working to keep the systems running well, while only a few bad apples might ruin the whole thing. But at the same time, computers run on parts and programs, and if the programs are corrupted, then the parts should still be usable. In the short term, a proper signaling machine should be able to link up multiple worlds together a lot better than most magics can, using radio waves, or through mana shenanigans for faster than light information communication…”

They spoke for a few hours.

It was nice.